Dean has a few questions regarding the “more women are choosing to go childless” issue. As is usual, the comments section at Dean’s World is top-notch.

Incidentally, I’m currently re-reading Zach Hughes’ ‘Pressure Man’, a mid-70s sci-fi novel about an attempt to rescue some alien technology that might allow humans to colonize other worlds. Earth is grossly overpopulated and the environmentalist/domestic movement has grown into terrorists organizations dedicated to destorying everything that takes money and effort away from feeding the starving population of the planet. How powerful are these terrorist organizations? They mount a major military attack on the space center designing the alien-retreival spacecraft.

In the book, the USA’s population, which has brought the nation to its knees due to lack of food and, well, just about everything, is 300 million.

Today, the only race on Easrth who seem to be expanding in significant numbers are the Arabs.’ Really? Asian populations (such as India, China, etc.) are holding steady, you say? In a barely-related story I heard this morning on the radio, apparently China is also very serious about this ‘women not having children’ thing. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9766870

I vaguely remember 70s era fear-mongering, predicitons that widespread drought and overpopulation would trigger cannibalism in some parts of the world. That is, parts of the world where it wasn’t already practiced.

I don’t know if there is a magic number for the world’s population. But I do know that it has tripled in 100 years and it is expected to double again by 2050. This means the population will have grown over 6 times from 1900 to 2050. Many of the comments at Dean’s site seemed to welcome this by pointing out there is more than enough room on Earth and any nation that wants a growing economy needs a growing population. However, a large percentage of the Earth cannot support large populations. For example, 1/4 of China is now desert and large parts of the Canadian Arctic are uninhabitable to large populations. Second, the nations with the fastest growing populations are not exactly at the top of the civilization ladder. If a growing population was a prerequisite to economic strength, then Mexico would be booming. Instead its people are leaving. Third, the immigrants we take into the US from the 3rd world is like taking a cup of water out of the Atlantic. It has no effect on the numbers of people left behind. In fact even with immigration to the US and other Western lands, the 3rd world is still increasing and stressing their already weakened infrastructure. My main concern is quality of life. Does the world have enough resources for everyone to live like we do in the US and Canada? If not, how much does our standard of living need to decrease to accommodate them? Fresh water is already a scarce resource in much of the world. Fish stocks are being depleted and they tell us raising cattle for food causes global warming from the methane in their waste. I don’t know what the population should be, but I am sure it can be estimated. Scientists give stats for how many wolves can live in Yellowstone, so I would think they should be able to come up with a ballpark figure for mankind.